“A man and woman went to Las Vegas for their honeymoon, and checked into a suite at a hotel. When they got to their room they both detected a bad odour. The husband called down to the front desk and asked to speak to the manager. He explained that the room smelled very bad and they would like another suite. The manager apologized and told the man that they were all booked because of a convention. He offered to send them to a restaurant of their choice for lunch compliments of the hotel and said he was going to send a maid up to their room to clean and to try and get rid of the odour.
After a nice lunch the couple went back to their room. When they walked in they could both still smell the same odour. Again the husband called the front desk and told the manager that the room still smelled really bad. The manager told the man that they would try and find a suite at another hotel. He called every hotel on the strip, but every hotel was sold out because of the convention. The manager told the couple that they couldn’t find them a room anywhere, but they would try and clean the room again. The couple wanted to see the sights and do a little gambling anyway, so they said they would give them two hours to clean and then they would be back.
When the couple had left, the manager and all of housekeeping went to the room to try and find what was making the room smell so bad. They searched the entire room and found nothing, so the maids changed the sheets, changed the towels, took down the curtains and put new ones up, cleaned the carpet and cleaned the suite again using the strongest cleaning products they had. The couple came back two hours later to find the room still had a bad odour. The husband was so angry at this point, he decided to find whatever this smell was himself. So he started tearing the entire suite apart himself.”
“As he pulled the top mattress off the box spring he found a dead body of a woman.”
This has to be counted as one of the most terrifying of the Urban Legends because it is one of the only of the creepy crop that actually has factual validation. Although there are no incidents that mirror this one exactly (none having been reported in Vegas), there have been numerous reports of stories similar to this appearing in newspapers around America.
In 1999, the Burgen Record reports of an incident of two German tourists, who had complained of a terrible, rancid smell in their room. Despite complaining, the couple ended up staying the night, sleeping above the decomposing corpse of a Saul Hernandez, 64, who was found in a similar hiding place as the body in the Urban Legend in the Burgundy Motor Inn in Atlantic City, another American gambling Mecca.
The most recent story paralleling the Body in the Bed was reported in March, 2010 in Memphis. ABC Eyewitness News reported:
“On March 15th, investigators were called back to room 222 at the Budget Inn, where the body of Sony Millbrook was found under the bed. Police say she was found inside the metal box frame that sits directly on the floor after someone reported smelling a strange odor. The box springs and mattress fit into the top of the bed frame.
Room 222, according to investigators, had been rented 5 times and cleaned many times by the hotel staff since the day Millbrook was reported missing.
Homicide investigators say Millbrook appears to have been murdered.”